A Cybertronian Carol
by SilverBlade
Summary: Megatron  from Beast Wars  is visited by 3 spirits during the human celebration of Christmas. The events take place on Cybertron, before the Beast Wars occurred.


A Cybertronian Carol

SilverBlade

(Timeframe: Pre-Beast Wars tech area, taking place on Earth. I used names from Beast Wars to identify characters, even though they were named in the Beast Wars)

Megatron sat at a chair in behind a large desk with a holographic monitor on top of it. Behind him was a corporate symbol, looking similar to the Beast Wars Predacon insignia. The computer alerts him that a Cybertronian female was outside his office. Megatron switches screens to show the camera feed.

"Arcee.." he muttered. "Why must these Maximals annoy me so?" He then remembered that, as part of the Pax Cybertronia treaty, the Predacons must not harm the Maximals.

"You may enter, Arcee" Megatron calls out, in a heavy sigh with a hint of annoyance and disgust.

The metallic doors slide open to the side and Arcee walks in, with a hint of fear on her face as she looks to the much bigger robot across the desk.

"Megatron? Tomorrow is the earth celebration of Christmas, and Maximals have decided to follow earthly tradition and give everyone has the day off work, yet you've given no days off."

Megatron looks at Arcee with great annoyance. "Us Cybertronians do not believe in a fairy tale. Besides, that 'law' is for **humans**, not Cybertronians, and as I am not a human, I have no obligation to follow it."

Arcee looks down at the ground. "It's my great-nephew, Rattrap. He's extremely ill. This may be his final Christmas, and I want to be with him."

"Sick you say? What kind of illness is it?" Megatron asks, trying to fake that he seems concerned.

"The Maximal physicians say that it came from off-world, another planet. Even though they will treat him, they need part of my coding to treat him, as his parents are no longer alive." Arcee in a fearful and sympathetic voice.

"That means you'll need a week off in order to recover from the procedure?"

"That is correct, Megatron. In order to cure him, they have to scan my spark to remove the parts they need, which can't be synthetically replicated.

Megatron looks to Arcee with a look of both disgust and fake-concern on his face. He knew the Maximals would be on his case if he was totally heartless.

"I will give you the day off – without pay – to spend time with your family. But I expect you to be at work the day after."

Arcee. "Thank you Megatron..."

"I can sense you have something else."

"Oh.." Arcee looked startled. How did he know? "Even in this technologically advanced world, we still have people in need, we still have poverty, we still have poor families. Would you not contribute to a fund to feed Earth's poor on Christmas day?"

Megatron sighed heavily, trying to control his anger, as he said "Do they not have jobs to go to? Are there not prisons to take poverty off the streets?" his voice filled with more annoyance. Why should he give anything? The Maximals seemed to take care of the humans when the earth's governments can not.

"But, your treaty with the Maximals..." Arcee began to say, before she was interrupted by the Cybertronian. "Pax Cybertronia does not have any requirements to give to the poor or needy. It does not even have requirements to follow earthly laws, only to respect human life and not to harm humans. You are lucky that I gave you the day off when I have no obligation to. Now, excuse me, I have work to do."

Arcee turned to leave the office. She turned her head as she stood in the doorway "Merry Christmas, Megatron."

Megatron was concentrating on what was on the monitor, as he says "Bah, Humbug"

Arcee hook her head and exited the office.

Later that evening, Megaton sips on an energon cube as he sits in an energon bath in front of what appears to be a fireplace, complete with heat and the familiar cracking of wood on fire."Who in their right mind would watch this?" He says to himself as he picks up a remote and taps a button. The 'fireplace' image is replaced with an old earth Christmas movie in black and white. "Even in this century, this movie is still being played.." On the screen the title 'A Christmas Carol – By Charles Dickens' appears.

During the movie, Megatron continues to smile. "Ah Scrooge, if only you were real, you would make an excellent Predacon."

_"BAH, Humbug!" Scrooge said on the screen_

"I like him, I like him a lot" Megatron says to himself.

As the movie finishes and the credits roll, Megatron exits the energon bath and heads off to his recharging chamber (bed). "Ghosts. Anyone can see that they are just a projection of imagination, and nothing more." He climbs into the chamber and prepares to sleep for the night.

Megatron was suddenly woken up by a noise in the other room. He climbs out of bed and exited his 'bedroom', to see a rusted cybertronian with a purple backing, with miniature windows to represent a jet cockpit. He lines up his arm cannon to aim at this mystery bot and opens fire. The shots just go right through the rusted bot and destroys some glassware.

The mystery rusted robot turns around, holding a glass full of glowing green energon. "Cyclonus?" Megatron queried as he stopped firing, part of the wall being destroyed.

"This is really good Energon, Megs. What blend is it?"

"Energon with a touch of spiced uranium. I thought you had gone offline 7 earth years ago."

"If I remember correctly." Cyclonus started. "It was you that destroyed my spark chamber. But I'm not here to argue about the past. I came to warn you. You are about to be visited by three spirits before the sun rises on earth."

"Ghosts are a myth. I'm not scanning anything from you."

"Yet you are still interacting with me. Be warned, the spirits will visit you." With that, Cyclonus phased out of view.

Megatron shakes it off and heads back to his recharging chamber.

"Megatron" an old voice said from the doorway.

"Go away" Megatron growled back.

"You must come with me" the old voice said.

"I'm not going anywhere" Megatron responded back.

The old bot grabs Megatron's arm and lifts him from the recharging chamber.

"Alpha Trion?" Megatron says in surprise.

"I will show you why you are the way you are." Alpha says to Megatron.

"You seriously can't be the Ghost of Christmas past! Cybertronians don't even celebrate Christmas!"

"We do not, but tonight is the perfect night to show you."

With Alpha Trion grasping Megatron's shoulder, they disappear from the room.

Alpha Trion and Megatron arrive in a darkened room filled with statues of former Decepticon leaders.

The pair watches a shadowed Predacon hovering over a younger Megatron.

"Why are we here?" The 'older' Megatron asks.

"This is where you began to become heartless. Even though Predacons are meant to be ruthless, yet have a tiny amount of compassion. You were trained from the start to be nothing but heartless."

The shadowed bot speaks to the younger Megatron. "You've been given the name 'Megatron' for a reason, now, take out those opponents"

The younger Megatron fires at some stationary drones, destroying them to varying degree.

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH" the shadowed bot says and smacks the younger Megs to the ground. "Your namesake would have disintegrated them with no trace. Try again"

A few more drones appear, this time, carbon-copies of Maximals.

"The Maximals want to enslave us, keep us locked up if we don't follow their every command."

'Younger' Megatron fires at the Maximal targets – hitting 3, missing 1. The shadowed bot smacking Megatron to the ground again.

"What the slag?" younger Megs calls out.

"As I said, your namesake showed no remorse, and obliterated all of his targets. You've failed."

The darkened bot says with disgust.

"You see Megatron, from the very day that you received the name 'Megatron', your mentor tried to train you to be as ruthless as the former Decepticon leader."

"What's wrong with that?" Megatron asks Alpha Trion.

"You'll see that when the next spirit arrives."

Megatron wakes up in his bed, as if he had never left "That was not real". He closes his optics once again.

Megatron was ripped from his charging chamber, as he looked up to see a blue bodied Decepticon that had features of a 'beard'

"I demand to know your name." Megatron hissed.

"You would call me Scourge, but I am known as the Ghost of Christmas Present. You will come with me."

"I will go with nobody" Megatron said harshly, but his arm was grasped by the clawed hands of Scourge as they vanish from the room.

Scourge and Megatron appear outside of a human household.

"Look inside." Scourge says and Megatron peeks through the window to see his employee, Arcee, push a smaller bot on a hover chair over to the table.

"That must be her nephew that she was talking about." Megatron quietly speaks.

"That it is. His sickness is The Hate Plague, which is why is is strapped to the chair, to prevent him from harming others."

"But Optimus Prime cured the entire galaxy of the Hate Plague a few centuries ago." Megatron began to say.

"The Wisdom that was inside the Matrix was used up. This new strain can be cured with resetting Rattrap's firmware, but they need to analyze Arcee's spark to get the correct code, and attempt to re-recreate the missing pieces.

"How long does he have?" Megatron asks.

"Without a reset, his own code will deteriorate and become fragmented beyond repair in 3 months.

"I refuse to let my employee take time off, even for this. Pax Cybertronia does not require me to have sympathy for Maximals, only to not harm them." Megatron said bitterly.

"Be careful of what you do, Megatron. The end result may not be favourable to you or to any Predacon."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Megatron insisted, instead, he wakes up back in his recharging chamber. "That must have been a glitch.."

As Megatron was about to fall asleep again, he spotted a figure in the door with 2 pointed edges on either side of the head. He then realizes who it was. "Rodimus?" he asks the figure.

"That is correct, Megatron. I am going to show you what your actions today will lead to in the future."

"Get lost, Rodimus. You're not the Autobot commander any longer, you will not tell me what to do!"

"Oh yes I will!" Rodimus says sternly as he grabs the Predacon's wrist and they vanish from the room.

Rodimus and Megatron arrive outside of Arcee's dwelling. They look in to find a holographic representation of Rattrap in the corner.

"Because of your deeds, Megatron. Rattrap died 2 days ago."

Suddenly, the world around them speeds up.

"What is happening?" Megatron asks Rodimus.

"I'm taking you a week into the future." Rodimus explained and the world's motion returns to normal.

The 2 bots arrive at Megatron's dwelling, inside the 'living room', where they see 2 bots, a robotic worker and one designed like an undertaker, selling off items.

"Hey, that's my maid.. wait a minute! My conquests! My belongings! They can't do this!" Megatron said angrily as he tried to grab the undertaker, but his hands go right through.

"They can not see us or hear us, Megatron."

"Tell me what happened Rodimus, NOW!" Megatron demanded.

"Shortly after the earth celebration 'Christmas', you acquired the Hate Plague from Arcee. She was immune since she received the cure when Optimus cured the galaxy, but her body still carried it. You received it when she gave you a datapad of a report. The plague was amplified by your own anger and lust for power that the plague rapidly deteriorated your code. You were quarantined. "

"What about the debt that people owe me? Where did that go?" Megatron asks.

The pair appears in a family dwelling, when the father figure walks through the door.

"Honey! Good news!" The father cries out to his wife. The woman comes running down the stairs.

"Since Megatron died, the bank was taken over by the Maximals. They have agreed to clear our debt! We have no mortgage now!"

"See Megatron. No one respected you at all because of how you treated everyone." Rodimus explains.

"What happened after?" Megatron said softly, afraid to know the outcome.

Rodimus and Megatron appear beside a cybertronian graveyard that is entirely messy. The tombstones have been scratched beyond readability, some spots have been dug out and the body pulled out and left. The pair notices one in the distance, covered by shadows. They walk towards it, and they notice that the hole is completely open

"Whose is this?" Megatron asks.

Rodimus moves his hand up to the grave stone, flame shoots out of the spoilers to reveal 'Here Lies Megatron."

"Mine?" Megatron steps back, startled. "It was never supposed to end **this** way!"

The grave hole lights up, and a few sharkticons leap out and tackle Megatron, dragging him towards the hole.

"Help me!" Megatron cries out to Rodimus.

"Why? Pax Cybertronia doesn't require us to help you." The spirit of Rodimus vanishes and the sharkticons successfully drag Megatron into the pit.

"Let me out spirit!" Megatron calls out to the air as he wakes up in his recharging chamber, mech-sweat dripping from his body.

"It was never supposed to end that way.." Megatron said as he climbs out of bed and races out.

Arcee was just about to push Rattrap towards the table when she heard the doorbell ring. She answered it and Megatron came bursting in, with a grin on his face.

"Merry Christmas Arcee and family!" He calls out joyfully, and confusing the slag out of everyone there.

"M..Megatron? What are you doing here?" Arcee asks, confused.

"I came to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas. Even though we don't believe what some earthlings believe, I want to celebrate it with you anyways!"

Arcee, still confused, yet not wanting to appear polite. "Please, Please, enter."

Megatron snaps his finger and his servants bring in a huge glowing turkey, followed by eveyr possible side-dish that one has for Christmas turkey dinner.

"Energon Turkey? That is expensive to get!" Arcee exclaimed.

"And it is mine to give to your family, Arcee. Now, about your great nephew, Rattrap? I will give you time off as required. In the mean time.." Megatron says as one of his servants places a circular device on Rattrap's neck, causing his red glow to dissipate.

"This is only temporary, but it will last until he can be cured."

Rattrap stands on his feet, raises his glass, and says to the others "Primus Bless us, Every one!.

Back on Megatron's desk, the screen flickers on, showing an image if a certain future Predacon transwarp vessel with the voice of Terrosaur.

"I found it Megatron."


End file.
